Responsibility Excerpt: Oculi Ritum
by Renteka-Bond
Summary: Desparate over the disappearance of her elder brother, Lucy makes a binding pact with forces beyond her control. Excerpt from 'Responsibility'.


**Author's Note** : This is simply an excerpt from a much larger narrative. I wanted to try something new from a creative standpoint.

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"…Are you ready?"

Haiku's question hung heavy in the dry air, the weight of its intent compounding on the young girls already anxious heart.

Lucy clutched the thick red book to her chest, knuckles white with tension. She was certainly _prepared_ for the rite to come, that much was sure. Despite its peeling cover and withered pages, the tome's instructions were surprisingly clear and concise, as most spells held within were.

 _Oculi Ritum – Ritual of Eyes_

 _Exalted Air, blessed with night_

 _Token charm of chosen peer_

 _Fractured totem of desperate seer_

 _Vessel of flesh, a drifter's plight_

The first portion of the spell was the easiest. Through ebony locks, she scanned the dark attic the pair now found themselves in. Scant shards of twilight filtered through the shutters, illuminating the specks of dust that flitted through the air and caked the attics innards. Boxes of old clothing, knickknacks and furniture hugged the walls, broken old dolls and discarded weaponry doing little to offset the warm familiarity the relics provided.

In the center of the room, a summoning circle was drawn, its blood red exterior encircled by a wreath of wreath of unlit candles. In the middle, a crude approximation of an eye ran the diameter of the ring, a lit 3–pronged candelabra placed in lieu of a pupil. Beside the candelabra, the remaining materials rested in a neat line.

Haiku placed her gloved hand on the young girl's shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze as her one visible eye stared into where Lucy's own would be, both expressions nigh unreadable in the dim eve's glow. To the pair, though, the message was clear; the slight loosening of her clutch on the tome and the breathy 'Sigh' she released, unaware that she was even holding it in, was enough to tell the older girl everything she need to know. Releasing her grip on the small – _too_ small – girl, Haiku stepped into the circle, careful to lift her dress over the candles so as not to disturb the formation and sat behind the candlestick. A moment later, with one last look at the attic door, cold and desolate with the sound of silence, Lucy stepped into the circle herself.

Kneeling at the front of the candelabra, she placed her ancestor's guide gingerly between the two other prepared materials: to her left, a strip of orange cloth and, to her right, a deck of old tarot cards. Returning the page to the designated spell, bookmarked by her favorite card in the deck, she gave one last look to her companion across from her, the elder occultist patiently awaiting her next move. Reaching into her pocket, Lucy retrieved a set of pearls, the last 'item' she'd brought for the occasion. Though it held no purpose for the rite itself, the old things brought her no small measure of comfort over the years, having belonged to one of the few people in her life she would call a 'kindred spirit', even if she'd never met their previous owner in person. Swaddling the orbs between her fingers, she briefly recalled one of the few times she had cried in her life, having broken the old necklace in some probable roughhousing accident she couldn't recall. Thanks to Leni and her father, though, the new material holding them would never break again, a fact that brought her great comfort as she brought the necklace over her head.

Behind Haiku, the last shreds of sunset departed, leaving the room a near pitch black save for the scant illumination the candelabra gave. Placing her hands above the open flames, she waited as Lucy did the same, the younger girl's hands dwarfed by Haiku's own slender digits. Though normally the difference in size would muddle the efficacy of the performance, they'd spent weeks practicing the motions to compensate for Lucy's material lack of experience. Even still, it had been decided that Lucy would take the lead, a decision she took in stride as she began the incantation.

"Ooh, Spirit, hear my plea~" she crooned, twisting and contorting her hands in slow, rhythmic time with Haiku's. In a flash, at the utterance of those words, a waft of air brushed between the two and the circle of candles ignited. The shadows of their fingers danced like puppets in a morbid play, the once nostalgic relics they bounced off gazing coldly into the light.

To her left, the orange cloth lifted into the air, ensorcelled by an aura of purple energy. "Token of my desire, I present unto thee" she continued, increasing the pace of the finger dance with Haiku. Though she cringed at the verbiage of the rite, the sentiment was not wholly inaccurate. A year without their brother had been hard enough on the family, but, to her, it felt like so many lifetimes had passed without him, a piece of her very soul lost in the inky sea of desolation that even she found suffocating. With Rocky's return, though, there was hope. Hope that she would be able to see him again and, maybe, reclaim that piece that she - that they all – were missing.

But hope, as Luna would say, leads to quiet desperation.

The second portion of the spell was now in play, this catalyst as simple to procure as the first. The hovering cloth, a scrap of clothing belonging to her missing brother, was perfect for the task. As it wrapped itself over her eyes, her bangs lifted from the sheer force produced by the power of their spell, she had to force back a chuckle. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on her; in the past, she'd lamented how unfortunate it was that Lincoln persisted in wearing the same old clothes everyday instead of capitalizing on his more exotic looks and, yet, here she was.

Her mirth -or rather, its suppression – was cut short by the reality of the situation. With phase two now complete, they were reaching the point of no return. The winds, blistering and howling, whisked the flames to and fro, nipping but never extinguishing the circle's flames as the duos' hands reached their apex in speed. With one final hand sign, the pair froze, a chilling air releasing from the tips of their magic-laced fingers and snuffing the flames and leaving the room enshrouded in a fog of darkness. This was only for a moment, as, before they had time to question whether the rite had succeeded or not, the candles, one by one, reignited in a sickly green bushel of flame. Around her neck, Lucy felt the pearls grow just a smidge tighter.

 _She's here…_

"Ooh, Spirit" Lucy began, reaching down to where she knew the spell book and cards were, taking one in each hand, "Token of my compliance, I present thee~". From her right hand, the deck of cards, like the cloth before it, became engulfed in purple ether and drifted from her palm, separating itself as it did so. In a blur, the cards shot out into the darkness, each one, at odd intervals, jettisoning itself into one of the many flames that entrapped them, creating a blinding flare of purple light with every incineration. It was too much for the older goth, eyes unprotected in the dim lighting, and Haiku was forced to shield her eye. After mere moments that seemed like an eternity, she uncovered her eye and gasped.

"L-Lucy," she choked out ashamedly, barely above a whisper. Floating in front of the cryptic Loud was the last remaining tarot card (thirteen, she noted), engulfed in in a violet, ethereal glow. In the palm of her hand, where the tarot deck once resided for but a moment, now sat an orb of the most brilliant white she'd ever seen, itself encased in a flickering shell of what looked to be purple flames. As vibrant as it appeared, however, its heat was comforting, relaxing even. Like a moth to a flame, Haiku found herself reaching out to touch the brilliance herself, mouth agape in delirious obsession. Collecting herself, she shook her head, clearing away whatever wanton nibbles of thought sought to sprout in her mind. Grabbing hold of her thoughtless arm, she turned her attention back to the girl herself, opening her mouth to call out to her once again.

But nothing came out. Where once there was warmth and familiarity, Haiku could only feel a foreign chill, one that soaked down to her bone as the sight before her took her breath away. Behind Lucy, illuminated only by the radiance of the orb, was what _appeared_ to be a woman, clad in the dingiest white dress she'd ever seen, torn sleeves and tattered hems highlighted in contrast with the nest of inhumanly long, black hair that fell near the length of _her_ body. One jagged claw protruded from the dress, its length a pale, ghastly sight, and reached for the orb, stopped just short of pilfering it for herself. It was only then that Haiku noticed why she'd stopped breathing, stopped moving, stopped thinking.

 _She_ was staring right at her. Bright as Lucy's orb itself, the woman's eye, as incandescently white as a full moon but as hollow as a recessed socket, glared directly into Haiku's own pale blue eye and, for the first time in her fledgling career, she began to regret ever studying magic in the first place.

"Harriet, I beseech thee…" Lucy intervened, shifting the specter's attention back to the orb. From behind her covered eyes, she could sense both the presence of her forebear and, more importantly, the fluctuating resonance of her companion. Any hesitation she'd had before was gone; her choice was made.

"I beseech thee, come into me!"

In an instant, Harriet clasped her clawed hand around the orb, tiny pillars of light escaping the between her jagged fingers for but a moment before it was completely enclosed. An unholy wail sounded in the air, knocking Haiku to the ground before Harriet made her move. She flicked around the room at ungodly speeds, her form a streak of white and black as she flew over the candles, snuffing their green glow one by one until the only light that remained was the forgotten candelabra and the glowing tarot card still hovering just inches in front of Lucy. With one final push, Harriet snaked her way forward, passing over Haiku and snuffing the last 3 flames of light before passing through the card and crashing full speed into Lucy's head. As she recoiled from the force of the entrance, time seemed to slow to a crawl, before, suddenly, her head wrenched back, a beam of light erupting from the beloved cloth with a hefty ' _BWOOOM'_!

Behind the mask, blurs of color, shapes and sounds coalesced in her sight. Intangible, unknowable and yet strangely familiar sensations cloyed at her consciousness, gnawing at her senses bit by bit before refitting and repurposing them to fit their will, confusion and ignorance giving to understanding and recognition. Purple blotches and shades of anger gave way to female form.

"…y…"

Inky desperation and bespectacled loathing became the reliable form of a trusted friend and…

"…cy, please!"

The smudged and obscured fragments of orange and white became…

"Lucy? Lucy, please get up!" Lucy felt herself rocking back and forth violently, the darkness of her surroundings suddenly making her nauseous. She felt around for her friend, exhaling when she finally found what she was sure was her knee.

"Groan…" she muttered weakly. Haiku gave a sigh of relief before shuffling back a bit to give the young girl her own space. Content with Lucy's answer, she closed her eyes and took one last deep breath before opening her eye a fraction of its full diameter.

"So," she started, her usual calm mostly returned, though there was an almost imperceptible tremble to it now. She continued, "What happened? Has the fog of ignorance been cleared from your sight?"

"I saw…" she started. Still nauseous from the reawakening, she took a moment to re-center herself. Soon, her 'vision' returned, a vibrant litany of shapes and colors laid out before her in a manner she was all too familiar with. On the ground before her, she noticed two misshapen squares of pale purple light before her. Picking them up, she immediately recognized the texture; it was the Death Arcana, ripped in twain from the ritual. Pocketing the card's remains and clutching the pearl necklace to her chest, she couldn't help herself from emoting as she came to her conclusion.

"I saw him!"


End file.
